


Cherry-Oh Baby

by baridalive



Series: forbidden fruit (and other tempting things) [1]
Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Boys In Love, Fluff, Friends to Lovers, Getting Together, Kissing, Lee Donghyuck | Haechan is Whipped, M/M, Making Out, Misuse of Cherries, Self-Indulgent, Tooth-Rotting Fluff, Zhong Chen Le is a scheming little shit, marknohyuck crumbs if you use binoculars, very light angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-23
Updated: 2020-05-23
Packaged: 2021-03-02 21:28:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,294
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24333604
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/baridalive/pseuds/baridalive
Summary: Mark can tie a cherry stem into a knot with his tongue. Donghyuck doesn’t believe him. Antics ensue.
Relationships: Lee Donghyuck | Haechan/Mark Lee
Series: forbidden fruit (and other tempting things) [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2046452
Comments: 49
Kudos: 751





	Cherry-Oh Baby

**Author's Note:**

> i've had this little concept in my head for quite a while now and then the moment i put it down on paper, it arrived in its final form about two days later. now that i think about this, it's kind of terrifying. i hope you enjoy this labor of love [? i think ?] and stream punch :D

It all starts with one of Chenle’s games, as most bad ideas do in their friend group. The fact that they’re all varying levels of wasted only makes it worse. 

The room is warm — almost uncomfortably so — and Donghyuck only has a moment to lament not wearing shorts before Jaemin’s throwing an arm around his shoulders and dragging him across the threshold none-too-gently. He’s apprehensive about whatever Chenle has planned for the friend group tonight, mostly because Yangyang is somehow involved and that’s _never_ a good sign for Donghyuck’s pride or his liver.

Jaemin leads him to a spot on the floor between him and Renjun, leaning back against the wall as they observe the rest of the insanity in the room right now. Yukhei and Jisung are bickering about the semantics of videogame that Donghyuck can’t remember the name of, Kunhang and Dejun are wrestling on the floor over something that’s probably menial and they’ll forget about in ten minutes, and Jeno and Mark have taken up the entirety of the one couch in the room, shoulder to shoulder.

Mark’s sitting there, wearing those godforsaken ripped skinny jeans and an off-white button down, half tucked in with just a few too many buttons undone at the top. It takes an extraordinary amount of effort on Donghyuck’s part to tear his eyes away from where Mark’s necklace rests across his bare collarbone, the chain pooling up in the dip of it.

His best friend is hot.

This isn’t news.

What _is_ news is the way he has one arm slung around Jeno’s waist, their heads bent down, giggling quietly together at something on Jeno’s phone. There’s something different in Mark’s smile, the way his eyes glimmer just a little bit more in the terrible lighting of the room when he meets Jeno’s eye and they burst into laughter all over again.

Chenle abruptly, and probably accidentally, ends his suffering by parading into the room with a glass bowl full of paper slips. Yangyang trails right behind him with an armful of expensive tequila that he probably stole from Ten’s stash when he wasn’t around. Both of them wear identical, terrifying grins on their faces. Chenle turns to wink at Donghyuck.

Honestly, Donghyuck should’ve known right then and there that he wouldn’t want to touch this with a twenty-nine-and-a-half foot pole and that he should probably leave if he wants to survive the rest of the night. Unfortunately, Renjun senses his thoughts of abandonment before he does and promptly sits down in his lap to keep him from escaping.

“Let me go, Jun,” Donghyuck hisses, trying to toss the boy off of him to no avail. Renjun stays put as he cranes his neck around to glare at him.

“If the rest of us are going to lose our dignity tonight, you’re not getting out of it either,” he retorts. Jaemin rubs the back of Donghyuck’s neck.

“You’ve been working really hard and you need a break,” Jaemin coos, fawning over him in a way that Donghyuck will only tolerate from Jaemin. “Finals are over. Sophomore year is done. Your internship doesn’t start until next week. Just relax for the night, would you? One evening is all we’re asking for.”

Donghyuck doesn’t reply. He just slumps down against the wall with a pout, tugging Renjun further into his chest. He hooks his chin over Renjun’s shoulder, watching curiously as Chenle and Yangyang set up camp in the center of the room, placing down the bowl and the bottles of alcohol. Yangyang disappears again for a moment, returning with a stack of red solo cups that he passes out to everyone in the room.

“Welcome, children of all ages,” Chenle starts, only to be unceremoniously cut off.

“Ninety percent of this room is older than you, Chenle,” Renjun calls out. Chenle looks at him, something between amusement and annoyance crossing his face.

“Actually, it’s only about eighty-two percent. Eighty-one-point-eight repeating, if we’re being exact,” Jeno blurts. It makes Mark laugh and swat at his shoulder, doubled over.

“Okay, big pure mathematics major boy.” Chenle turns to him. Donghyuck recognizes the look in his eyes a second too late. “What are the odds that I’m going to make you go first in this without explaining it to you?”

None of the rest of the room even tries to stifle their collective _ooh_ at that. Jeno shuts up real fast. Mark runs a hand through his hair in consolement. It’s only now that Donghyuck realizes Mark hasn’t acknowledged him since the party started. It makes him go back through the past day in his head, trying to figure out where he might’ve pissed him off, but nothing comes to mind. They were fine this morning, Donghyuck even cooking the two of them breakfast in their shared apartment because they had the time for once.

He frowns, but moves his attention away from Mark once more as Chenle carries on.

“This is a little game that Yangyang and I have decided to call ‘Truth or Tequila.’ The rules are simple. Pick a slip of paper from the bowl and read the question aloud. Either answer the question or take a shot,” Chenle booms with a smile. “You’ll probably be ridiculed for it either way.”

“I can’t believe this is the celebration for making it through another year of hell,” Yukhei whines, flopping down onto the carpet, his head hitting Jisung’s stomach hard enough to make the freshman’s legs fly out in reflex, almost kicking Dejun in the face.

“But this is voluntary hell with free alcohol and no student loans, so I’d stop complaining if I were you,” Yangyang replies. Yukhei seems to agree with that, shrugging his shoulders against Jisung and falling silent.

“Alright, Jeno goes first,” Chenle announces, smugly satisfied that he gets his retribution. Jeno winces, but reaches into the bowl that Yangyang offers him anyway, pulling out a slip.

“If the world was ending by means of a zombie apocalypse and you kissing someone in this room would stop it, who would you kiss?” Jeno reads. He grimaces. “I think I’d just let the world end.”

“Me too,” Yukhei chimes in.

“Hear, hear,” Jisung agrees, raising his empty cup.

Chenle glares at both of them.

“So is that tequila, I hear?” Yangyang looks at him expectantly. Jeno’s grimace only grows as his gaze flicks around the room. Donghyuck swears it settles on him for an extended moment before he looks back at Yangyang, resigned.

“Yes.”

That’s a tragedy, honestly, because Donghyuck would’ve been really interested to know, but that thought drains as fast as Jeno drinks the shot of tequila Chenle poured into his cup. He shivers, exaggerated, and it makes Mark laugh again, this time Jeno joining him. It’s a nice sound, the two of them. 

“Alright, Yukhei, you’re up,” Yangyang sing-songs, wiggling the bowl in front of him. Yukhei grabs a slip out, reading it slowly.

“If the world was ending by means of an alien invasion and you kissing someone— _alright, hold on!”_ Yukhei exclaims, yanking the bowl away from Yangyang and digging through the slips with a now-alert Jisung. “They’re all versions of the same thing!”

That’s the moment they all silently agree that Chenle and Yangyang need to be thrown in the pool out back.

Thirty minutes and two large splashes later, they’ve all returned to the room, this time Donghyuck somehow sandwiched between Jeno and Mark on the couch. Jaemin pulls out his phone and starts looking up truths on the internet to ask, and that ends up going much better.

Renjun admits that he’d rather be in culinary school than be an engineer.

Chenle would give up all of his trust fund money in exchange for a trip to space.

Kunhang would slap his mother if it means that he never gets sick. This sparked a huge debate until Kunhang admits that he thought the slip said ‘brother’ and then a fight breaks out between him and Dejun because of it.

Donghyuck drinks instead of telling his friends that he slept with a night light until age fifteen. Mark sends him a knowing look. Donghyuck flips him off.

It doesn’t get really interesting until Jaemin reads Mark his dare.

“What special skill do you have to help you get laid?”

The room goes absolutely silent. Mark picks at one of the holes in his jeans nervously.

“Uh, I mean…” He seems at a loss for words. “I can tie cherry stems into a knot with my tongue? Does that count?”

The entire room erupts in wolf whistles and cajoling from every person except for Donghyuck.

Being Mark’s best friend since they were in diapers leads Donghyuck to know a lot of weirdly specific and private stuff about him and vice versa. He’s the only one who knows Mark is terrified of heights but only over water, and Mark’s the only one who knows that Donghyuck refuses to go into the attic in his parents’ house because he thinks it’s haunted and not because he has a self-diagnosed dust allergy.

Donghyuck never knew this about the cherries — he never knew when or where Mark had learned it either, or why Mark never told him.

That bothers him a little more than it has any right to.

The game moves on, though, and so does Donghyuck. 

The night wears on and so do the questions. The tequila runs out, which they only notice when Renjun doesn’t answer a rather sexually charged question directly from Jaemin instead of the internet and cheers when he doesn’t have to drink. By then, it’s nearing three in the morning, and Chenle drunkenly decreed that none of them are in any state to be leaving right now and commands that all of them stay the night, just to be safe.

No one has any qualms with this, especially not once Jaemin and Dejun offer to make breakfast in the morning out of whatever they can find in the hellscape that is the pantry in the house — although its state is more thanks to Yangyang than Chenle. 

Sleep comes easy that night once Donghyuck settles down, but he can’t pinpoint exactly when it happens. Sometime between armwrestling Yangyang and telling ghost stories with Renjun, he passes out, only remembering the arms that carried him off.

♡

Donghyuck wakes up on the couch, half sprawled out across a body underneath him, a blanket haphazardly thrown over the top of them both and feeling like he really hasn’t slept that much at all. A headache throbs behind his eyes, so Donghyuck squeezes them further shut as if that will block out the pain. It doesn’t. After giving up on that, he forces himself to blink his eyes open instead to take stock of his surroundings.

He finds himself face to face with a wrinkled, off-white button down, his cheek pillowed against the soft, bare skin of a chest where the buttons are undone. It’s warm, and the dull, steady thrum of a heartbeat beneath his ear helps Donghyuck chill the fuck out when he realizes that he’s been snuggling with Mark all night, arms wrapped around one another to stay close. Mark’s hands spread across Donghyuck’s spine under both the blanket and Donghyuck’s own shirt, two spots of comfort meant to lull him back to sleep.

He almost succumbs to their quiet urging for a moment, almost lets himself simply revel in the moment of being so close to Mark, almost gives in. That’s until the hands move gently, deliberately, stroking up and down Donghyuck’s back, painting warmth and alertness in their wake.

“I know you’re awake,” Mark murmurs, his voice low and rough like many times Donghyuck’s heard it in the morning. It’s different when he can feel the vibrations of the words through his entire body. He shivers. “I can feel you blinking.”

“I’d better stop doing that then,” Donghyuck replies, not liking how his words string together out of tiredness, muffled a little bit against Mark’s skin. He picks his head up to look at Mark, who’s still sleepily trying to blink his own eyes open.

Once they successfully stop drooping, Mark smiles lazily at Donghyuck, his head angled up from where it’s resting against the arm of the couch. Slowly, he takes the hand resting at the base of Donghyuck’s spine and removes it from underneath both his rucked-up shirt and the blanket entirely. Donghyuck doesn’t have time to mourn the loss of its warmth before it returns, this time tracing across his cheek. Mark giggles softly.

“You have a mark on your cheek,” he whispers, trembling with unvoiced laughter. Donghyuck wants to say that yes, Mark’s hand is indeed on his cheek, but then his tired brain catches up and he understands.

Donghyuck reaches up with his own hand, batting Mark’s away to feel his own skin. Sure enough, there’s a long, thin divot from his ear to his nose that matches up exactly where his cheek had been pressed against the chain of Mark’s necklace overnight. He sighs, letting his head fall back down onto Mark’s chest tiredly, but not before flicking the offending chain out of the way this time. It’s a poor attempt to hide the divot and he’s aware of this, but it makes Mark laugh again so he doesn’t mind it too much.

His still-sleep-addled brain decides that now of all times would be great to dig up everything he was thinking about last night. To make it all that much better, Donghyuck’s brain-to-mouth filter has seemingly disappeared along with all of his other inhibitions this morning.

“Hey, Mark?”

“Hmm?” he hums, playing with stray strands of Donghyuck’s hair mindlessly.

“You know I’ve never actually seen you do the cherry stem trick…”

It’s meant to come out significantly more teasing than it ends up doing; the early morning coats his voice in a layer of sincerity he can’t seem to shake off before the words spill out. It sounds a little harsh, even to his own ears, but Mark never stops carding his fingers through Donghyuck’s hair as he replies.

“You think I’m lying.”

Donghyuck isn’t sure if that’s a statement or a question.

“I’m just saying I’ve never seen you do it before.”

“I can prove it to you,” Mark follows up quickly.

Both of them pause for a moment. Donghyuck can feel Mark turn his head to look around as they slowly both come to the same conclusion. They don’t have any cherries.

Donghyuck picks up his head again, resting his chin on Mark’s sternum to look him in the eye. He looks good in the mornings, unfairly so. His hair is messed up, his eyes still glossed over with that extra remnant of sleep, his lips pulled into a crooked smile so the little dimples above his upper lip make a rare appearance. He’s quite the vision, if Donghyuck is honest with himself, which he isn’t very often when it comes to subjects like Mark.

“Maybe Chenle has some in the fridge downstairs?” Donghyuck suggests quietly. “I know Yangyang likes them.”

It’s a bit of an operation to get untangled from each other and then out of the room without waking anyone else up because they’re all sprawled out in varying uncomfortable-looking positions on the floor, but they somehow manage. The two of them hold in their laughter as they scuttle down the stairs to the kitchen, Yukhei’s snoring impossible to not giggle at.

Donghyuck checks the fridge while Mark scours the pantry, but both of them turn up empty-handed in terms of cherries.

“Grocery store?” Mark offers with a shrug.

“Grocery store,” Donghyuck confirms, nodding once.

Before they can go anywhere, a series of shuffling footsteps make their way down the stairs, and Donghyuck looks over to be met with the stupidly pretty sight of one Lee Jeno, scrubbing at his eyes as he trudges into the kitchen. Sure, Donghyuck’s seen him before, but there’s something about the way he smiles at the two of them so sleepily, his eyes turning into the cutest crescents, that makes Donghyuck’s heart jump up to his throat. Jeno’s much softer now than he tends to be once he’s coherent, no biting edge to his jokes that keep on pace with Donghyuck’s own scathing comments, no uncanny ability to see right through him like Mark does.

Donghyuck takes full advantage of this by easily reciprocating the back hug Jeno pulls him into, wrapping his arms around Jeno’s where they’re resting over his ribcage. It’s comforting, and when Donghyuck looks over at Mark, he just smiles, leaning against the countertop as he watches them.

“G’morning,” Jeno mumbles into the side of Donghyuck’s neck. “What’re you two doing up?”

“We were gonna go get some cherries from the store,” Donghyuck explains gently, rubbing circles onto the back of Jeno’s hands that tighten around Donghyuck at the sensation.

“Donghyuck doesn’t believe that I can tie cherry stems with my tongue,” Mark chimes in, a little too cheerful, a little too unnecessary for Donghyuck to brush off. Jeno pulls back, and Donghyuck sends a glare at Mark for a moment before turning to face a frowning Jeno.

“You’ve never seen him do it?”

“Can’t say that I have…” Donghyuck shakes his head, starting toward the front door so he can grab his shoes. “Does everyone else really know about this except for me?”

“It’s the classic Mark Lee party trick!” Jeno exclaims, looking between the two of them, incredulous. Donghyuck vaguely draws a similarity between him and a confused puppy. It’s kind of adorable. “He uses it all the time when he wants to hook up with someone.”

If _that_ doesn’t put an ugly feeling in Donghyuck’s chest, then he isn’t stupidly in love with his best friend.

In love.

Love.

He loves Mark.

Huh.

That makes for two horrifying revelations for the day, then.

Donghyuck absently plays with the bracelet on his wrist that matches the one on Mark’s — a habit he can’t shake after so many years of doing it. He doesn’t pay attention to the way both Jeno’s and Mark’s faces go red, Mark moving to flick Jeno’s shoulder at the comment. Donghyuck busies himself focusing on the colors; they’ve worn down over time, between constant fiddling, sun exposure, and prolonged amounts of time in water. He and Mark made them ages ago, purposely so large that they’d slip off their skinny, young hands if they weren’t careful so they could grow into them as they grew up together. It was a promise back then, and it’s an affirmation of the followthrough now.

The sentiment was cute — it still is — but Donghyuck kind of wants to take it off for the first time since he put it on.

It serves as an irritating reminder that he and Mark are stuck in the realm of friendship. Nothing more, nothing less. Then again, Donghyuck would rather have Mark in his life as his best friend than not have him at all, so he lets the bracelet go and resolves to keep it on. Even through their worst fights they’ve both kept them on, and Donghyuck feels like a coward for wanting to give up at something this small.

It’s not really all that small, though, Donghyuck’s love for Mark, and that’s where the problem lies.

He’s been holding everything in, pushing everything down for so long that the moment the first small leak sprung, it didn’t take long at all to turn into a waterfall. Donghyuck’s overwhelmed right now, palms sweating, heart racing, and he doesn’t even notice that he’s swaying a bit on his feet until Mark grabs his shoulders to steady him.

“Woah, you look a little pale, are you okay?” Mark peers at him, a frown causing a little create between his brows. It’s cute — both the expression and the concern. If Donghyuck could stomp out the butterflies in his chest he would.

“Yeah, just a little dizzy.” Donghyuck steps out of Mark’s grasp, waving him off. He slips on his shoes without further hesitation and adds, “Let’s go.”

“See you later, Jen,” Mark says, patting Jeno on the cheek gently, leaving a thumb to stroke along the line of his jaw before he and Donghyuck scurry out the door without another look back.

Mark had carpooled here with Jeno last night, so they take Donghyuck’s dingy old olive green sedan to the store, mutually resolving to return to their shared apartment after the expedition instead of back to Chenle and Yangyang’s place. They’ve both had more than enough chaos for the day already and it’s not even noon, although most of that stems from the hours after midnight and before they fell asleep.

Mark scavenges out the container of ibuprofen from Donghyuck’s glove compartment, both of them hoping it kicks in before they get to the grocery store. The bright morning sunshine was pleasant back in the room of Chenle’s place, but now that he has to drive in it, he resents it a lot more. His headache agrees with him.

Although both of their pain has faded by the time they reach the store, the way they both wince when Mark accidentally closes the car door too hard tells them both everything they need to know. Shoulder to shoulder, they walk out of the humid morning air into the building as fast as they can. Donghyuck starts towards the produce section the moment they step inside, but Mark grabs his wrist, tugging him the other way.

“I like maraschinos better for tying knots. Their stems are softer.” He wrinkles his nose. “Also they don’t have pits.”

“You’re picky,” Donghyuck comments, just an observation, but lets Mark lead him anyway.

“Only about certain things, you know this,” Mark tosses back, unbothered.

Donghyuck wonders why Mark knows exactly where the maraschino cherries are in the grocery store. He wonders how often he does this, how many other people he’s done it for. The feeling that settles in his stomach is less than pleasant, so he draws his mind to other things, like all the weird looks they’re getting from the other customers. It’s early on a Saturday, they’re still dressed up from the party last night, and even though Mark’s shirt is now buttoned up to a socially acceptable level, Donghyuck’s sure they look like a hot mess regardless.

Donghyuck tries to subtly wipe at his cheek to see if the imprint of Mark’s necklace has faded, but he looks up to see Mark giggling at him, watching his every move.

“It’s gone, you’re all good,” he teases.

Donghyuck flicks him off with his free hand and they keep walking. It’s nice to know that they haven’t changed despite Donghyuck’s minor crisis — if realizing he’s in love with his childhood best friend can be considered _minor._ That’s a thought he resolves to unpack later, though.

Mark grabs a jar of the cherries without stopping and they pay for them and leave: no other fanfare necessary. The ride back to their apartment is stiflingly silent despite the radio playing softly in the background, turned to the Saturday morning jazz station where Mark put it the moment they got in the car. He tends to monopolize the radio despite it being Donghyuck’s car, but it’s decent music so he doesn’t complain.

“I need to shower, I feel so gross,” is the first thing to come out of Donghyuck’s mouth when they step inside their blessedly air conditioned apartment.

“Ugh, me too,” Mark groans, picking at his shirt.

“You go first, I’ll open the jar?” Donghyuck jokes. Mark sticks his tongue out at him.

“That was _one time.”_ He crosses his arms, petulant. “I weakened it for you.”

“Mhmm, sure, sure.” Donghyuck grins, not believing him for a second. “Now shoo. Go get cleaned up.”

What Mark doesn’t have to know is that Donghyuck only manages to open that stubborn jar once Mark’s well into his shower. He closes it up again, leaving it on the kitchen counter as he goes to his room. Flopping down on his bed, staring up at the ceiling, Donghyuck lets his mind wander to everything and nothing all at the same time, nothing sticking in his head long enough for him to actually ponder it. That’s probably a good thing right now.

Mark pokes his head into Donghyuck’s room only a little bit later, knocking softly on the doorframe when he peeks in. He’s shirtless, as he is a lot of the time when it’s just the two of them, just in a pair of joggers with the logo of their university on the thigh with a towel across his shoulders. He still has his necklace on, like he always does, but Donghyuck’s eyes pause on a different accessory entirely: the faded bracelet around Mark’s wrist, identical to his own.

He feels so fucking guilty for even _considering_ taking it off. He assures himself that he’ll tell Mark about it later when the atmosphere isn’t so fucking weird.

“Your turn,” is all he says before leaving. Donghyuck nods in response even though Mark can’t see him anymore.

Donghyuck showers, pushing all thoughts of red fruit and equally red lips out of his mind as best he can. It works for the most part, simply reveling in how nice it feels to be clean again and in fresh clothes when he steps out of the bathroom.

He returns to his bedroom to find Mark spinning around in his desk chair lazily, actually wearing a shirt now, and cradling the jar of maraschinos as if it’s an actual child there in the crook of his elbow. It’s a funny sight and Donghyuck leans against the doorway to watch Mark continue for a moment until he catches sight of Donghyuck and stops so abruptly he whacks his knee on the side of the desk.

“Ow, fuck, hi Hyuck,” he curses, trying to right himself. “I didn’t see you,” he adds on, abashed.

“Clearly,” Donghyuck cackles. “Nice rhyme.”

He seats himself down on the edge of the bed, bending his neck over and holding out his towel. As always, Mark’s right there, cool fingers running over his scalp once before taking the towel to rub his hair dry. Donghyuck doesn’t know when they started this, honestly, but it feels nice for him and Mark does it voluntarily, so he counts it as a win-win situation.

When Mark’s done, he sets the towel to the side of Donghyuck’s bed, neither of them really minding that it’s still damp and will probably make the duvet wet as well if it keeps sitting there. Donghyuck glances up finally, straightening his posture as he feels Mark disappear from his immediate radius.

Over by his desk, Mark twists open the jar of cherries and looks back at Donghyuck.

“Ready?”

“Ready as I’ll ever be,” Donghyuck reples easily, sitting back. He considers himself lucky that his voice doesn’t shake.

Mark nods once and pops one of the cherries into his mouth, keeping the stem pinched between his thumb and forefinger. He chews and swallows the fruit before putting the stem on his tongue, closing his mouth again, and proceeding to look really weird.

His expressions all read of concentration — the furrow in his eyebrows, the slightest downward curve to his lips — but they all look equally outrageous from the way he’s moving his jaw around. It really shouldn’t be attractive, but it’s Mark, and he’s the cutest dork in the world and Donghyuck’s in love, so naturally he finds it to be the hottest thing ever. It’s kind of annoying.

A minute later, a smile of triumph breaks out across Mark’s face and he sticks out his tongue to show a perfectly knotted cherry stem sitting there. He picks it up and holds it in the palm of his hand proudly, bringing it closer to Donghyuck. 

“See?”

Donghyuck does, in fact, see. It’s a little hard not to when Mark’s this close and his lips are stained a bit red and his eyes are shining with pride and—

Oh.

He meant the cherry stem.

“Huh,” Donghyuck manages, trying to collect himself. “So you really _can_ do it.”

“Told you.” Mark looks smug.

“That was disgusting,” Donghyuck brushes him off. “Go wash your hands before you touch anything else.”

Mark pauses, looking at Donghyuck for a long moment before leaving the room. The faucet turns on in the bathroom and Donghyuck finds himself finally being able to breathe. Not for long though because Mark comes marching straight back in, purpose in both his stride and his eyes.

“You know, if it really bothered you that much, you could just tell me to stop and I would.” The way he says it doesn’t sound accusatory, just concerned.

“It doesn’t bother me, what do you mean—”

“You can’t lie to me, Hyuck,” Mark says slowly. “I’m serious. Does it bother you?”

“I mean… no? But yes?” Donghyuck wants to bang his head against the wall. “I don’t know. It’s complicated.”

“Then explain it to me,” Mark urges, stepping closer. Donghyuck purses his lips, but speaks up before Mark can step forward again and ruin Donghyuck’s train of thought with the proximity of his annoyingly pretty face.

“You use this trick to hook up with people, so why are you showing me?” he blurts. Honestly not what he meant to say, but it works. Mark stops abruptly, tilting his head to the side. The shine in his eyes dulls, his smile falls, and okay, _fuck,_ maybe it didn’t work.

“Hyuck what?” Mark asks quietly, looking genuinely confused. “It’s just a stupid party trick. You think I actually get hookups from this? You think I have the _time_ for hookups? We literally share an apartment, wouldn’t you know?”

“I don’t know.” Donghyuck shrugs helplessly. “I don’t get home until late a lot of the time, I’m not trying to be your keeper or anything. Seriously, I’m not mad if you do, I just assumed that you did because you know—” he gestures vaguely at Mark’s figure— “you’re you.”

“Hyuckie, what the fuck? No, I don’t do that.” Mark shakes his head. Donghyuck isn’t sure if he’s disgusted or exasperated. “You know Jeno was joking when he said that, right?”

Donghyuck stays silent, sheepish. He kind of wants to just jump out the window right now and never show his face to Mark ever again. An undignified snort meets Donghyuck’s ears and he looks up to see Mark doubled over, hands on his knees, shaking with silent laughter.

“What?” Donghyuck crosses his arms, annoyed. “What’s so funny?”

“You’re _jealous,”_ Mark concludes with that stupid crooked smile of his as his laughter dies down, as if that solves all the problems in the world. It doesn’t. Donghyuck still wants to fling himself out of his bedroom window and run away.

“What?” Donghyuck splutters. “No I’m not!” He hates how Mark is missing his entire point here, probably on purpose, just to rile him up.

“I can just teach you, you know.” Mark’s grinning like a fucking idiot. Unfortunately, Donghyuck has never been more in love. This sucks. “You just have to ask.”

Donghyuck knows his face is probably about as red as the cherries in the jar on the desk. He also knows that Mark is probably finding great amounts of entertainment in his embarrassment, and that just won’t do. Mark’s had the upper hand for much too long, in Donghyuck’s humble opinion. He just doesn’t know how to change that around yet.

“Fine. Teach me.”

Mark looks like an enthusiastic puppy when he springs up from where he was slumped, his eyes shining again and his smile wide and genuine.

“Alright, okay,” he bubbles, grabbing the cherries and the rolling computer chair from the desk to sit in front of Donghyuck’s perch on the edge of the bed. They’re eye to eye now. Mark picks a cherry from the jar, holding it up for a moment until the excess liquid can drip back in.

Then he proceeds to fucking feed it to Donghyuck. What’s worse is that Donghyuck, like the hopeless idiot he is, _actually lets him._

The pads of Mark’s fingers barely press against Donghyuck’s lips before they’re gone again, leaving tingling in their absence. The cherry is sweet and exactly how Donghyuck expects it to taste, but he swears he can still taste Mark’s skin on his lips.

With some difficulty, he manages to swallow the cherry while leaving the stem in his mouth, clamped between his front teeth as the sugary fruit slides down his throat easily. 

“Still have the stem?” Mark asks, eyes trained on the center of Donghyuck’s throat. He must’ve just seen Donghyuck swallow.

Grinning, Donghyuck sticks out his tongue to show off the stem that still sits in the center of it. Mark laughs, scrunching up his nose as he uses the pads of his fingers to push on the bottom of Donghyuck’s chin to make him close his mouth. He belatedly realizes that Mark’s fingers don’t leave his skin after that.

Mark trying to explain how to tie the knot is almost as amusing as watching him do it, but it proves to be significantly more difficult than he realized. Despite Mark’s pointers — put it under his tongue so the sides curve up, cross the tips into an x using the back of his teeth, push one side through the loop slowly — he still can’t get it.

Donghyuck spits out the stem onto the towel next to him at the foot of the bed, the red line stark against the white fabric. He hopes it won’t stain.

“I can’t learn like this, Mark,” he gripes. “You’re a terrible teacher.”

“I think you’re just a terrible student,” Mark tosses back, finally retracting his hand from Donghyuck’s chin. “How _do_ you learn, then?”

“I don’t know, but definitely not like this.”

They’re both still and silent for a moment, contemplating. Mark reaches for the jar again, something new and distinctly different alight in his eyes.

“I have an idea,” Mark explains when Donghyuck raises a questioning eyebrow. “If you’ll let me try something?”

“Be my guest.” Donghyuck shrugs before leaning back on his hands and watching Mark carefully. Mark grabs another cherry, biting down on it and leaving the stem once again pinched between his fingers as he finishes the fruit.

“Scoot back and close your eyes,” he instructs.

“Mark, what—?”

“Just trust me…” He suddenly looks unsure of himself, biting down on his lip. “Please?”

“Fine, fine,” Donghyuck huffs, backing up on the bed until his spine makes contact with the headboard. He levels Mark with a look, hoping it conveys how unimpressed he wants to appear and now how nervous he actually feels. Mark’s ears turn a little pink and he avoids Donghyuck’s gaze. It’s nice to see that he’s not completely unbeatable.

“Close your eyes,” Mark urges, almost a whine, and Donghyuck does, stretching his legs straight out on the bed in front of him.

Nothing happens for a long moment.

Then the mattress dips on one side of his legs, then the other. A tentative weight settles on his thighs. Out of reflex, Donghyuck’s hands fly out to grip whatever is resting on him to steady it, but just as soon as his fingers brush the cotton of a familiar pair of worn joggers, he lets go just as fast.

Mark is there, sitting on his lap — fucking _straddling his thighs,_ hell Donghyuck might just combust right here and now — all very warm and solid and real. 

“Sorry,” he murmurs, his hands hovering at his sides for a moment before settling back onto the bed, digging his fingers into the sheets so he doesn’t accidentally grab Mark again. Mark just giggles lightly, apparently finding this much less mortifying than Donghyuck is. Which, to be honest, is fair. If the positions were flipped, Donghyuck would be laughing too, but also Donghyuck would be tempted to do so many other things. He digs his fingers into the mattress to stop that runaway train of thought.

“Ready?” Mark asks. Donghyuck squeezes his eyes shut tighter, nodding. “Are you sure? Because if you’re not cool with this then—”

“Just get on with it!” Donghyuck cries, impatience overwhelming his words. Mark laughs again, but it sounds closer this time.

“Open your mouth a little,” he coaxes, and holy shit, Mark’s lips are brushing Donghyuck’s ear, the words no more than a whisper. He lets his lips drop open in the slightest, and takes a shaky inhale through his nose. There’s a finger hooked under his chin, then everything is deliciously warm.

That’s Mark’s mouth.

On his.

They’re kissing.

What the fuck.

Then it’s gone.

“Is that okay?” Mark asks softly, stroking the underside of Donghyuck’s jaw. He sounds a little nervous, but Donghyuck swears he’s never nodded so fast in his life, his still-damp hair flopping onto his forehead. It’s worth it when it makes Mark giggle once more before their lips are pressed together again.

And _oh._

That’s Mark’s tongue. In Donghyuck’s mouth. Against his tongue. Then there’s something else in there too, something long and skinny and it pokes the roof of Donghyuck’s mouth uncomfortably.

Suddenly, Donghyuck gets it.

Mark’s tongue curls over his own, looping around the cherry stem. At first, Donghyuck tries to help out, but Mark’s other hand grips the side of his jaw to get him to stop as he lets out a whine of frustration. He stops — not entirely, because just because he stops deliberately trying to help Mark tie the cherry step doesn’t mean he isn’t going to make the most of kissing him — and just lets Mark do as he pleases. Donghyuck tries not to focus on the fact that the first time he and Mark are kissing is because of a fucking cherry stem.

If Donghyuck can even call this kissing though is an entirely different question, though. He really isn’t sure.

He can feel everything Mark does with the stem in high definition clarity and it brings him to almost resent the teaching tactic because he actually might have a better shot at being able to do it now that he can tell exactly what Mark’s doing and he’s not relying solely on Mark’s questionable explanations.

A rush of bravery overwhelms him all of a sudden, and he carefully moves his hands to rest on Mark’s knees, feeling the warmth of his skin through the joggers. Mark quivers a bit at the touch, spurring Donghyuck to drag his palms up a little farther on Mark’s thighs and back down, rubbing carefully, deliberately.

Mark leans into Donghyuck even more than he already was for just a moment before he pulls away, leaving one last chaste kiss on Donghyuck’s mouth before sitting up straight.

“Okay,” he rasps, and Donghyuck feels a surge of pride that Mark sounds just as affected as Donghyuck feels. “Open your eyes.”

He does slowly, drawing his gaze up from where his palms are still planted on Mark’s legs, all the way up past Mark’s spit-slicked, swollen lips, to his wide eyes that eagerly await a response. Mark quirks an eyebrow, quite the contrasting emotion to the blush that has taken up residence on his high cheekbones.

Donghyuck sticks out his tongue, pinching the cherry stem resting there and holding it out in front of him to see a neat knot in the center.

He’s equal parts disgusted, delighted, and turned on.

It’s still up in the air whether he’s surprised about that last part or not.

“Holy shit,” Donghyuck breathes, looking between Mark and the stem. “That was… really something.”

“Yeah…” Mark trails off, still breathing heavily. His tongue traces over his lips delicately, and Donghyuck tracks the movement carefully. 

They sit there for a moment, Mark’s thighs flexing under Donghyuck’s hands impatiently, waiting for some kind of reaction. It takes an extended moment for Donghyuck to snap out of it and toss the stem across the bed onto his towel to join its discarded cousin.

“Okay, go get me another cherry, I think I can do it this time,” Donghyuck declares, tapping his fingers on the worn fabric, feeling the heat just on the other side seep into his hands. Mark sighs, but makes no effort to move. He just sits there, waiting patiently for something.

Something.

Someone.

He’s waiting for Donghyuck.

“You weren’t just doing that to teach me, were you?” Donghyuck surmises slowly, his tired brain finally kicking into gear.

Mark gleefully shakes his head. “Nope.”

“You did it because you wanted to kiss me.”

“Ding ding ding, we have a winner,” Mark cheers, clapping slowly. “And he finally understands.”

“What do you mean ‘understand?’ I don’t understand _anything,”_ Donghyuck whines, letting his head thud back against the wall.

“I’m in love with you,” Mark replies simply, flicking Donghyuck on the forehead. “I skipped right past the stage of liking you and have been head over heels for your stupid, oblivious self since I was sixteen.”

“Oh.” Donghyuck despises how breathless he is. “I literally just realized i was in love with you this morning, what the _fuck_ Mark.” 

Mark howls with laughter at that. Donghyuck scowls at him, gripping his legs tighter in response.

“So _that’s_ why you were so awkward?” he gasps between fits of giggles. Donghyuck whacks his leg.

“Shut up, nerd.”

“But I’m your nerd,” Mark retorts, still smiling.

“Damn right you are,” Donghyuck growls, palms dragging up curl around Mark’s waist, squeezing lightly, taking pride in the way Mark jerks, gasping at that.

“And you’re my oblivious idiot so we’re even,” Mark finishes in a murmur.

“I’ve always been yours, Mark,” Donghyuck softens his tone. “Even before I admitted it to myself… it’s the truth. It’s always been you.”

“You’re so sappy this morning what the hell?” Mark peers down at him, the teasing smile dancing on his lips overshadowing the face he makes at that.

Donghyuck pulls him down and kisses him straight on until he loses the smug smile, tugging him closer all the while until their chests touch, their heartbeats becoming one. It feels like coming home at last, no more pretenses or excuses or running away. Just them here together, Mark wrapping his fingers into Donghyuck’s hair, arching his back to try and eliminate the already-nonexistent space between them.

It tastes of cherries and very vaguely of Mark’s mouthwash, and it’s nice to let go and get swept up in each other. Donghyuck may kiss Mark like the world is ending, but Mark kisses Donghyuck like they have all the time in the world, and that only makes him fall even deeper. There’s no getting out at this point, even if he wants to. 

Donghyuck finally pulls back to breathe.

“Be my boyfriend, Mark Lee?” he pants. Mark grins at him, rubbing a thumb across his cheek.

“I thought you’d never ask.”

Then they’re kissing again, like they will for most of the rest of their day — and if Donghyuck has any say in it, most of the rest of their lives — tasting of cherries and adoration all the while.

Honestly, Donghyuck’s never been more in love.

♡

Somewhere on the other side of town, Chenle grins smugly over a cup of coffee. 

“So how much are we willing to bet that they’ll be together by the time we see them next?”

Everyone rushes into a frenzy of betting money so quickly that no one notices Jeno nursing a hot chocolate and a broken heart in the corner of the kitchen, longing for nothing more than to be in the embrace of the two boys who are perfect together on their own.

**Author's Note:**

> this fic is dedicated to everyone who yelled about marknohyuck in my replies when i posted an excerpt of this on twt thank you now this has an accidental plot instead of just like 3k of making out this is your fault just putting it out there [love you all anyway]
> 
> come yell at me on my socials about anything <3
> 
> [twitter](https://twitter.com/baridalive)  
> [curiouscat](https://curiouscat.me/baridalive)  
> [tumblr](https://baridalive.tumblr.com)


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